


Happily Ever After

by keijikeijikeiji



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Short Story, Unrequited Love, i was depressed and wrote this lmao, if ur sad n u know it hurt ur favs, kuroo actually isn't in this at all but he's mentioned so dont get your hopes up, sry keiji
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-01-26
Packaged: 2019-10-16 09:14:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,461
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17546867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keijikeijikeiji/pseuds/keijikeijikeiji
Summary: Akaashi wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight. How could you possibly claim to love someone that you haven’t even spoken to yet? It didn’t make any sense, infatuation at first sight, perhaps, but love? You needed to get to know someone before you fell in love with them. You needed to get to know their dreams and passions and their quirks and flaws. You had to know their favorite foods and songs and movies before you could claim to be in love with someone. But when Akaashi Keiji was in middle school and he laid his eyes on Bokuto Koutarou, he thinks he begins to understand.





	Happily Ever After

Akaashi wasn’t one to believe in love at first sight. How could you possibly claim to love someone that you haven’t even spoken to yet? It didn’t make any sense, infatuation at first sight, perhaps, but love? You needed to get to know someone before you fell in love with them. You needed to get to know their dreams and passions and their quirks and flaws. You had to know their favorite foods and songs and movies before you could claim to be in love with someone. But when Akaashi Keiji was in middle school and he laid his eyes on Bokuto Koutarou, he thinks he begins to understand.

Akaashi and Bokuto have known each other for about two years now. If you asked Akaashi, it felt like it’d been a lot longer than that. Akaashi considered Bokuto to be his best friend, and he would hope that Bokuto felt the same way about him. But, within these two years, Akaashi’s crush didn’t seem to go away. In fact, it did quite the opposite. Not that it mattered, though, because Bokuto was currently sitting beside Akaashi with their backs pressed against the gymnasium wall telling him about the crush that he had on Kuroo. 

“Akaashi, I think I love him,” Bokuto said. 

Akaashi wasn’t quite sure what to say. It felt like a slap to the face. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to react when a friend tells him that he’s in love with someone. And he especially wasn’t sure how to react to the person that he was in love with telling him he was in love with someone else.  
“Oh? Why don’t you just tell him,” Akaashi had said. And he immediately wished that he had said something else, anything else. 

“Yeah, you’re right!” Bokuto agreed.

Bokuto immediately stood up and grabbed his backpack, practically running out of the gym and leaving Akaashi to clean up their mess alone. Akaashi sighed and leaned his head back against the wall to look up at the ceiling. He knew Bokuto was about to go to Kuroo’s. He knew that he was going to confess now before he could talk himself out of it, and it was Akaashi who had provided him with the push that he needed. 

Akaashi finally stood up after a few minutes, put the volleyballs back into the cart and went home. The train ride home was a lot quieter without Bokuto. Akaashi couldn’t stop thinking about him and Kuroo together. Would Kuroo accept Bokuto’s confession? To be honest, Akaashi didn’t know if Kuroo even liked Bokuto. He didn’t think that Kuroo didn’t like Bokuto, but Kuroo never did anything that would make Akaashi think that he thought of Bokuto as more than just a friend either. Akaashi didn’t have to wonder for much longer, because he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

From: Bokuto – he said yes!!!!!! :))))))) 

By the time Akaashi got off the train, he was almost in tears. He wanted to be happy for Bokuto. He was happy for Bokuto, but it didn’t seem fair.  
To: Bokuto – Congratulations, Bokuto-san.

When Akaashi got home, he got a shower and went straight to his room. He was surprised by how much he was letting this affect him. He knew that he had a crush on Bokuto, but maybe even he hadn’t realized the extent of it. As soon as his head hit the pillow his vision became blurry and he could feel the tears fall from his eyes. He wasn’t sure how long he laid there and cried, but eventually he fell asleep.

Things only became worse from there. Kuroo was all that Bokuto wanted to talk about, and Akaashi was happy for them, but he couldn’t help but get annoyed. It’s not as though Bokuto was purposely being malicious, after all he didn’t even know how Akaashi felt. 

“Bokuto-san, don’t you have anything else you’d like to talk about?” Akaashi asked, unable to completely mask the annoyance in his voice.

“Oh, I guess I have been talking about him a lot lately huh? Sorry Kaashi, you must be getting tired of hearing about Kuroo,” Bokuto laughed. 

You have no idea.

That was all it took for Bokuto to begin talking about something else. Not that it mattered though, because now Akaashi was deep in his thoughts.  
why was Kuroo-san his first choice?

If they had never met, would Akaashi have had a chance? 

Was Akaashi even a second choice? A third?

Was he a choice at all in Bokuto’s mind?

Lunched seem to be going by slower than usual. he could hear that Bokuto was talking, but he wasn’t paying much attention to him.

By the end of the day, Akaashi had wanted nothing more than to just go home and crawl into bed. But of course, he couldn’t do that. He was vice captain of his team, and vice captains don’t skip practice, no matter how shitty they feel or how tired they are.  
However, if he was being perfectly honest, the team probably would have been better off without him there today. His tosses were all off and he was taking far too much time making decisions. 

“Akaashi, are you alright?” Bokuto asked after he had spiked a toss that was lower than Akaashi knew he liked them. 

“fine, Bokuto-san,” Akaashi replied. 

He took a deep breath and spun the volleyball in his hands. This was getting ridiculous. It was just a stupid crush, it’s time to get over it. Practice carried on, and he was playing like his usual self, for the most part. He found himself not setting to Bokuto as frequently as he usually did. To someone on the outside, it would have seemed completely normal, but his team could feel the tension, and everyone could tell that something was wrong, but no one said anything. 

After practice Akaashi grabbed his water bottle and headed towards the locker room. 

“Akaashi, where are you going?” Bokuto asked. 

“To shower.”

“Huh? Aren’t you going to stay with me for extra practice?” 

Akaashi sighed. He could feel everyone’s eyes on him, Akaashi and Bokuto have been staying after practice since the first day they met. 

“I’m not feeling up for it today, Bokuto-san,” he replied before going into the locker room to shower. 

Akaashi knew that he was being petty. He knew that it wasn’t Bokuto’s fault that he liked Kuroo. He knew that Bokuto didn’t owe him anything, he wasn’t obligated to return Akaashi’s feelings. He knew that he should be happy for Bokuto. He was happy for him. He was. Or at least he hoped that if he kept telling himself that he was, then he would be.

When Akaashi got home, he went straight upstairs and into bed. He didn’t bother eating dinner or taking his dirty clothes out of his backpack and putting them in the laundry, he didn’t even bother to take a shower.

It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that he could feel such strong feelings for someone who didn’t return them. It wasn’t fair that Akaashi was completely infatuated with someone who viewed him as nothing more than a friend. It wasn’t fair that he couldn’t find himself to be happy for his best friend, despite his best efforts. It wasn’t fair that Akaashi found himself counting down the days until Bokuto graduated. Once Bokuto goes to college, that will be it. He’ll never have to see him or Kuroo again, and he won’t have to listen to Bokuto ramble on and on about how perfect Kuroo is anymore.

Akaashi shut his eyes tightly. That isn’t what he wanted. He didn’t want this to ruin his friendship with Bokuto. Bokuto didn’t owe him anything. He was misplacing his anger and taking it out on Bokuto and he knew that. He was aware of what he was doing, but he couldn’t seem to stop. 

The sudden vibration of his phone disrupted his thoughts. He didn’t even need to look at it to know that it was Bokuto. 

From: Bokuto - hey, I hope everything is okay. we always do extra practice :(

To: Bokuto - Everything’s fine. I was just tired is all. 

And with that, Akaashi silenced his phone for the night. 

It’s been a month since Akaashi had ditched extra practice with Bokuto, and although things during practice returned to normal, things outside of practice did not. Akaashi still stayed after practice to toss to Bokuto, but the practices were missing the teasing and banter that made them so enjoyable in the first place. Not that it was anyone’s fault but his own. 

If Akaashi was being honest, he thought that he’d be over it by now. He thought that the pain would subside, and things would go back to how they once were. But he was wrong. Things were not getting better, they were getting worse. Akaashi could keep it together during school and practice and even during his extra practices with Bokuto, but once he got home, he could feel that things weren’t okay. His parents were worried about how often he skipped dinner, but he’d tell them that he got something to eat with Bokuto after practice and that seemed to be good enough for them. He spent all of his time at home in his room, specifically in his bed. Sometimes he would lay there for hours without doing anything. He didn’t cry about it anymore though, and he wasn’t sure if that was an improvement or not.

“Akaashi, can we talk?” Bokuto asked. 

They were currently in the gym, it’s been about ten minutes since everyone else had left to go home for the night. 

“About what?” 

“I don’t know? I just feel like things are weird between us. Did I do something wrong Akaashi?” 

Akaashi knew that this was coming. It had to happen eventually.

“Everything’s fine, Bokuto-san.”

“No, Kaashi, everything’s not fine. You keep saying that everything’s fine when it clearly isn’t. You barely speak to me anymore outside of practice, we never hang out anymore and most of the time I don’t even get a text back from you. I just don’t know what I did, and I think that I at least deserve an explanation,” Bokuto said. 

Akaashi bit the inside of his cheek. The last thing he wanted to do was to make Bokuto upset.  
“I guess I’ve been avoiding you,” Akaashi replied. There was no point in hiding the truth, Bokuto had already known it anyways. 

“Well, yeah I see that, but why Akaashi?” 

“Because, Bokuto-san. I’m going through something right now,” he replied. 

“What? What’s wrong? You know you can tell me anything Kaashi,”

He turned his back towards the cart of volleyballs and away from Bokuto. 

“Bokuto-san, you didn’t do anything wrong, okay?” 

“Well, yeah that’s what I was thinking too, but then I was thinking that I must have done something, cause it’s not like you to act like this. You’re not usually one to hide your feelings. You like to discuss them that way you can work it out and move on, so I must have done something pretty bad then, huh Kaash?” Bokuto asked in a soft voice. 

Akaashi squeezed his eyes shut and placed the volleyball back into the cart. 

“Bokuto-san, I don’t think I’m up for extra practice today,” he said, his voice cracking.

He started to walk over to the bench where his belongings were. He could feel his eyes start to sting and he knew that he was going to cry. He had to get out of there.

“Are you crying? Akaashi? Please look at me,” Bokuto said hurriedly. He was standing right behind Akaashi. Bokuto put one hand on his shoulder and forced him around. Akaashi refused to look him in the eye, but he knew that Bokuto could tell.

“Keiji, please talk to me,” Bokuto pleaded. His voice was desperate. Akaashi let out a shaky breath and looked Bokuto in the eyes. He looked so sad that Akaashi almost felt like he was the one that need to comfort him.

“Bokuto-san, I can’t. I’m sorry,” he said, his voice came out much quieter than he expected it to.

“Keiji. I’m not leaving this gym until you talk to me. We’re best friends. You can come to me about anyth-.”

Akaashi squeezed his eyes shut and took a deep breath.

“Bokuto-san, I’m in love with you,” he finally said. He could feel the tears spill from his eyes, but it felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. It felt god to say it out loud despite the circumstances. 

He opened his eyes, but he wouldn’t meet Bokuto’s. 

“And I know, I know that you don’t feel the same way. I know you’re happy with Kuroo-san, and that’s okay. You don’t have to feel bad because you don’t return my feelings. You didn’t do anything wrong, but please try to understand that this is a bit difficult for me,” Akaashi paused to let out another shaky breath.

“I thought that I would be over it sooner, but if I’m being honest it only seems to get harder to be around you.” he finished. He still hadn’t brought himself to look Bokuto in the eyes. 

“Keiji I’m sorry, I didn’t kn-” Bokuto began. 

Akaashi didn’t really want to be having this conversation right now, if he was being perfectly honest. He’d much rather be almost anywhere besides this gym right now, telling Bokuto how he felt and unavoidably having to deal with the rejection. Up until this point, Akaashi had still managed to hold onto the little sliver of hope that he had left, because up until now, Bokuto hadn’t known of Akaashi’s feelings. But now, here they were. Akaashi had just told Bokuto to his face that he was in love with him, and he knew that he wouldn’t hear the same in return, and it would be confirmation that his feelings were unrequited.

“Of course you didn’t, Bokuto-san, because I didn’t want you to know,” Akaashi said, finally meeting Bokuto’s eyes.

Perhaps if this were a movie, Bokuto would have kissed him right then and there. He would have explained that Akaashi was the one he wanted this whole time, and that he and Kuroo weren’t actually that serious. Perhaps they would have ran off and got married and lived their lives happily ever after.

Bokuto was looking at him as if he were helpless, and Akaashi felt like he’d just been punched in the gut, because that wasn’t the look you gave to someone who’s confession you were going to accept.

Because this wasn’t a movie. This was real life, and in real life things don’t always have a happy ending.

**Author's Note:**

> sooo, yeah.


End file.
